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Limit on visas raises industry fear of worker shortage

Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 4, 2007 at midnight

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Colorado businesses that depend on seasonal employees from abroad are concerned they won't be able to hire enough help this winter.

That's because Congress didn't extend a provision that had exempted returning employees from limits on the number of visas that U.S. immigration officials can issue to temporary foreign workers each year.

"They've already closed out for winter and met the cap, which is devastating," said Ilene Kam-sler, president of the Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association.

By law, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency makes 33,000 visas available for the first half of the fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1. Another 33,000 visas are available for the second half of the year.

This year, all the available visas for the first six months were issued before Oct. 1.

Businesses have been lobbying Congress to expand the visa limits. But they managed to hire larger numbers of overseas workers over the past three seasons because of the temporary provision that allowed workers to return each season without counting toward the visa limits.

The "returning worker" exemption expired at the beginning of this month.

"The lack of available H-2B visas will have a dramatic impact on Colorado's hospitality industry and the state economy as a whole," said Paul Buono, a member of the Colorado Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Businesses remain hopeful that Congress will pass legislation that specifically addresses the issue of exempting from the visa limits workers who go back home at the end of the season and return the following year.

A proposal to make that provision permanent - as well as one that would increase the number of visas available for guest workers - was part of the immigration overhaul that failed in the Senate earlier this year.

A coalition of industries including those involved in lodging, landscaping, travel and tourism, construction and entertainment is lobbying Congress for a fix to the visa shortage.

In a letter to Congress, the H-2B Workforce Coalition noted that businesses must try to hire U.S. workers before they can apply for employees under the temporary visa program.

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